1. Field of the Invention
The invention generally relates to vehicle control and more specifically to an integrated programmable solution for electronic control of the new generation of low polluting and fuel efficient powertrain of vehicles.
2. Prior Art
At both national and international levels, states are setting legislations and standards that impose on vehicles to be either more fuel-efficient or more environmental friendly by limiting CO2 and other pollutant emissions. These include, for example, EURO 6 and EC 443/2009 in Europe, CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standard and EPA (Environment Protection Agency) regulation in US and MOE (Ministry of the Environment) emission standards in Japan. In parallel, leaders of the automotive market are working on a common frame, the ISO 26262 standard, to make electrical/electronic systems, embedded in vehicle, more reliable. In countries such as China and India such regulations, constraining car manufacturers, are emerging as well, and will increase in the coming years. In case of ratio limitations non-compliance fees are planned to stimulate manufacturers and consumers to achieve compliance. In this context, by 2014, new vehicles will have to be more environmental friendly, energy effective and safer.
To reach these objectives, automotive manufacturers and their respective suppliers are primarily focusing on improving their traditional thermal engines by introducing new technologies such as actuators electrification, motor “down-sizing”, and transmission electrification or hybridization, e.g., electric motor association. Vehicles weight reduction, e.g., by wiring reduction and replacement of mechanical controls by electrical control, and predictive navigation, e.g., having the power train system taking into consideration traffic information and global positioning system (GPS) data, are additional ways for improvement. Thus the growing engine complexity trends implies simultaneously an increase of powertrain systems variants and a noticeable increase in the number of sensors and actuators and of the amount of data required to be processed concurrently in real-time resulting in an increasing latency of the electronic system and costs issues.
It would be therefore advantageous to provide a powertrain solution which addresses the currently unmet challenges that include, for example, latency and costs issues to effectively support powertrain system variants.